I need some help decoding what people are saying to me when I go into shops (I'm in Berne, but suggestions from other German-speaking parts welcome as I'm sure there is at least some overlap, with pronunciation differences).
Can someone suggest some phrases I might be hearing?
I'm down with Gruesse/Gruesse mitenow (that's my attempt at phonetic spelling of what I'm hearing) ... also can sometimes get "blah blah blah helfe" (then I only have to guess whether it is "Can I help you?" or "Let me know if I can help you." since those need different answers) but sometimes it's something else entirely.
Also suggestions for standard "thanks please leave me alone" replies would be welcome too! For now I am using "Merci, ich schaue nur" and it is understood but I don't think it is the standard ...
Smile and say "Du stinkst wie Zwiebeln"...actually, on second thoughts, don't do that.
You can, of course, smile and respond in English that you don't speak German. This is obviously polite and they may be able to help you in English. Don't be shy. What annoys me is when people ask for directions or for info assuming the local is polylingual. Hellooo...
I was just wondering why you are putting the "nur" at the beginning of the sentence, when in proper German the sentence would start with the object, in this case "ich" or in Schwyzerdütsch "i."
Everyone else's contributions have been *very* helpful in relation to your initial query and all ... but here's an attempt at help from a (low level) "high German" learner... (Other helpful threads have concluded that learning high German is a good idea before attempting Schwiizer Dootsch, since it's the official version and pretty well everyone speaks or at least understands it )
They are saying "Grüezi mit den Anderen", I think it is. (grrroootsi mitten aahnd seems to be how it comes out here in Aarrrrgau, but yeah in my limited experience mitten ow is out there too ) and means greetings/hello everyone (with each other). It's for when you're greeting more than one person. If saying it to one person, it's just "Grüezi".
The hilfe bit is possibly from "Kann ich ihnen hilfen?" (remove random consonant phomemes and you get the swiss German version ) And it means "can I help you?" in polite speak. Any phonetic spelling suggestions from our more learned colleagues would be appreciated .
As for the helpful replies provided by our Schadenfreudig (sadistic is the best English equivalent that comes to mind) friends... perhaps you might want to stick with the "I bi nur am largered/loy grr"or whatever it was as opposed to the others. Otherwise...isn't "Ich schaue mal" also used?
Adding anything other than that as a response might be a bit OTT. But after that there are the standard "was kostet das?" and "kann ich mal anprobieren?" (how much is that? and can I try it on?) etc.
www.leo.org has a reasonable translator that can be fun to play around with. Throw something in English at it and see what it pops up .
Think he's got you on that one mate, in that particular case the pronoun must come first, or could be dropped entirely if you really wanted to shorten it, even in Swiss-German If you wanted to should strange you could start it with 'nur'.
I have a funny story about people greeting you in shops when you have no idea what it means. On my last trip to Japan I was walking through a shopping arcade. It's common that shop staff call out to you with loud, super polite expressions to attract your attention and welcome you to their shop (can get irritating, but much less irritating than being ignored or treated like dirt). So I was walking past one counter when a girl starts yelling out the customary greetings. I just smiled politely and walked on, until after I had passed she threw in a "How about it?" at which point I turned around quickly to see her melting into the floor with embarrassment - she hadn't expected that!
Shop assistants may be rude enough to talk about you because they think you don't understand, but generally only after the initial greeting and if they are sure you are foreign.
Thanks. After 30 years in Germany, all of them in the South, several of them near the Bodensee where Alemannisch (Swiss German's 3rd degree cousin) is spoken ... I thought I would get it right.
Please do say that, as it will make my life that much easier... I'd rather speak English with a customer than German!
And yes, they're asking (here is High German) "Kann ich Ihnen helfen?," (Can I help you? [US] / Are you being served? [UK]) but in Swiss German "Ka ich [Bern: i] Ihne helfe?" (My guess, I work in Zürich.)
It is "Grüsse" in Bernese, in Zürich / Aargau it'd be "Grüezi." I had actually never even heard it before working at a few stores frequented by the Swiss. They'll also drag it out to "Grüesse Wohl" or something that sounds like (someone correct me if I'm wrong) "Grüsslich."
Grüezi Mittenand / Miteinand... but Grüsse and the other variants are much more common in Bern -- working at the airport and train station in Zürich I've picked up on this (the difference is very noticeable). I'm also in Aargau, and the dialects here "melt" together, dependent upon the location (Baden versus Zofingen) along with the generation.
In the US we also use the word Schadenfreude, even though it is German. I would say "Nein, danke" before anything else. You can put the "Ich bi am Luege" after that. This is the typical response that I receive from the Germans or Swiss (the entire phrase is dependent upon the location, "i" instead of "ich" is only used in Bern from the best of my knowledge. I've had a conversation with my Swiss (Aargauer) wife about it).
Hi, thanks for replies amusing and helpful! I would like to clarify my initial question: actually rather than having the phrases I mentioned explained (although that is probably useful for someone as well), I would love it if you could suggest some other Swiss German phrases that I might hear from someone. I am trying to tune my ear in so I can pick out key words. (I went through a similar process with Danish in Copenhagen -- although it's a written language, the spoken form has a rather difficult to discover relationship to what is written down!)
While I'm not aspiring to be fluent in the local dialect any time soon, I think in many situations it's polite if you can make at least the 'initial noises' correctly ... even if you later have to switch to English or High German. There's always a difference between saying something which is 'technically' correct and comprehensible and saying what is culturally normal and most important expected. So much of everyday language operates on standard 'scripts' ... and language textbooks don't always have the right scripts for every situation. (In Denmark all beginner Danish learners like going to the bakery, because the bakers usually follow the 'in the bakery' script from the standard textbook quite closely!)
Thanks for the luaga/luger phrase ... what I will do is eavesdrop until I hear someone else saying something that sounds vaguely like that and then try to copy them.
Also I forgot to say that I can understand High German a fair bit and speak the basics well enough to get around in Germany. I'm learning more by the day in an intensive class and it does help, tangentially, with understanding what I hear of the local dialect.
It does seem from the people I've encountered here so far that while some would prefer English to halting High German, some are really not comfortable with English at all and would prefer any kind of German (also found a few who want to try French but that's a dead loss here unfortunately!)
A lovely man selling falafel on the market square here explained yesterday that in English he only knew kissing, no other words but he could "kiss very good in English!" That's the spirit.